APPR RATING AND SCORE RELEASE PROCESS

Pursuant to Education Law Section 3012-c, parents and legal guardians of students may request the final quality rating and composite effectiveness score for each of the teachers to which your child is assigned for the current year (i.e. the 2013-2014 school year) and for the principal of the school building. Please be advised that the law does not allow and prohibits the release of any additional information about the individual teacher beyond the final rating and composite score. The purpose of this notice is to inform you of this right and the process by which you may request such information.

Only parents and legal guardians may have access to the final quality rating and composite score of the student’s teacher(s) and principal. The School District is required by the law to take reasonable steps to insure that the person requesting the information is a parent or legal guardian of the student to whom the teacher(s) or principal is assigned. Therefore, any request must be in writing on the form provided with this notice. No oral requests will be honored. Teachers and principals have a right to know if a request for their scores has been made.

The form should be submitted to the office of the building principal. Once it has been received, a meeting will be arranged between the parent and the building principal. At the meeting the rating and score will be verbally provided. At the same meeting, the parent or guardian will also receive the required explanation regarding the rating and score to best understand them in the context of teacher evaluation and student performance.

When the information is available, a parent or guardian may request the information. The School District will request photo verification (such as a license, a passport or some other form of photo identification) to verify that the person requesting the information is the parent or legal guardian of the student. In the case of legal guardians, the School District will require proof of guardianship (i.e. court orders, etc.). The status of the requesting person will be verified against other information concerning the student in the possession of the School District (i.e. information or documents submitted at the time of registration) and the requesting person will be notified once their request has been verified and approved.

You should also be advised that a teacher or principal may appeal their final rating and composite score. This will impact both the timing of when such information can be provided to a parent or guardian since, if an appeal is filed by the teacher or principal to the APPR rating, then the rating and composite score will not be available until that appeal process has concluded.

Some of the information has been modified with state guidance due to COVID-19. For your information, the rubrics that are used to conduct observations and to give feedback can be found here for teachers and here for principals.

If you have any questions about this procedure, please contact the Superintendent of Schools or the Director of Curriculum and Instruction.